Huntsville gazette., 1887-10-08
INDIAN THUGS.
Men Who Commit Murder as a Re-
ligious Rite.

"Well," says the landlord of our
hotel at Jabalpur (the halfway
house" of the long journey from Bonn
bay to Calcutta). "now that you We
seen the ruins of the Hindu citadel,
and been over the native cantonment,
and visited the temple on the hill yon-
der, and gone round the marble rocks
of the Nerbuddha, there's nothing left
for you to see except the thugs.
The grim name seemed TO strike
upon me with sudden chill, often
though heard it before; for it is one
thing to hear orread about the terrible
''Stranglers" of the East, and quite
another thing to find oneself unexpect-
edly face to face with them. More
over. although l have already seen or
dinary murderers by the score in ST.
berian chain-gangs, West Indian peni-
tentiaries, Brazilian prisons, Turkish
and Syrian fortresses, this is my first
experience of men who turn murder
itself into a religion. pray devoutly for
its success, and offer up heartfelt
thanksgiving to Heaven when it is
DONE
1.-The Thugsr' echoes an American
tourist. who has the next room to ours
stepping out suddenly upon the veran-
da. well, I'm just starting to have
look at them myself; so, if you and
your lady are ready to go, guess we
can all start together.
Away we all three 90 accordingly.
along the broad. straight, dusty high
road, which is fortunately shaded to
some extent from the burning sun by
the vast banner-likc leaves of the palm
trees that stand ranked like soldiers
along either side of the way, alternat-
ing with clumps of feathery bamboos,
whose crested tips, tapering like
gigantic fishing poles, sway languidly
in the morning breeze.
As we paused for moment to ad-
mire the beautiful little green paro-
quets that are fitting to and fro over
head with impish screeches. shrill
cry makes us spring aside just in time
10 avoid an enormous elephant that
comes tramping around bend OF the
road with perfect mountain Of for
age on its back. while the slim. sharp
featured mahout (driver), whose
brown limbs and white robe make him
look like a cigar wrapped in paper.
sits perched on its neck and urges it
on with an occasional prod of his
short iron hook.
"Who are these Thugs. anyhow"
asks the American. as we move on
again. Il just know they're always
numbering people. and that's about
all l do know"
"Wol." said. ], 'most of what !
know comes from Colonel Sileman
and Colonel Meadows Taylor, who
were the chief agents in putting them
down. The original system, years
ago, was simply continual
human sacrifice 10 Kali, the
goddess of murder. from whom
Calcutta (Kali -Kuttah, or Kali's Tenn
ple) took its name. The theory wa
that the earth was over-peopled, and
that the Kali's servants, the Thugs.
had to clear off the superfuous popu-
lation by little judicious numbering
every now and then. So. whenever
they could waylay any man in lone
ly place they strangled him with
silk handkerchief, and then buried
him; and this they called the good
work. -
II wonder what they'd call bad
work, then?" mutter my companion.
"Well, this went on for ages upon
ages. without any one having the
least suspicion of it. Men kept disap-
pearing hear and there, and nobody
knew how. At first the murders We're
simply a religious rite. without any
thought of plunder; but afterwards
they began to combine robbery with
murder, and to pick out as victims
those who were worth plundering.
However, the English had been in
India for years before any one dream
ed that 'Thuggee' existed. At last a
Thug chief, being under sentence fol
soms crime, betrayed his comrades to
save his own life, and then the whole
story came out, and the
Thugs were seized and inl-
prisoned. AT first the British Commits
sioner of the district where the dis.
coye,y was made wouldn' t believe that
all these horrors could have been going
on 80 long without being found out;
pa, sseu the old chief dug up thirteen